December 24, 2022

New-to-me: a Database of Apple Reviews (Fruit, Not Tech)

New-to-me: a database of apple reviews. The fruit, not the tech. They absolutely savaged my favorite (Granny Smith) but to their credit they also slagged the SugarBee, an apple purchase I bitterly regretted a few weeks ago. From the About page: “Brian Frange is a comedian and writer who has been yelling about apples for years. He started yelling about apples professionally in 2016 while working on Comedy Central’s Not Safe with Nikki Glaser while serving as co-host on the Not Safe Podcast. Shortly after that he started the Tumblr apple review blog The Appleist and it became popular, I guess.” This man has a burning hatred for Red Delicious apples and this Web site is a fun read.

New Resources 0
August 30, 2021

Search Engine Land: How Google and Yelp handle fake reviews and policy violations

Search Engine Land: How Google and Yelp handle fake reviews and policy violations. “Unfortunately, bad actors may seek to harm a business’s online reputation through fake reviews or by crowding them out with fake listings. While Yelp and Google both have extensive systems and policies to fight bad actors, there are important distinctions that every local marketer should be aware of, and knowing them can help frame your expectations for each platform as well as enable you to make more informed decisions about where to spend your time and resources.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
July 25, 2021

KGW: Washington couple sued for $112,000 after leaving one-star reviews

KGW: Washington couple sued for $112,000 after leaving one-star reviews . “When Autumn Knepper and Adam Marsh’s roof started to leak at their Vancouver home a few months ago, their landlord sent over Executive Roof Services (ERS) to check it out. An employee came, looked in the attic and said there were a few spots to fix.” I experienced REALLY LOUD AUTOPLAY VIDEO on this page, so be careful if you’re wearing headphones.

Security & Legal Issues 0
July 20, 2021

Top Reviewers Or Bot Reviewers: The Goodreads Bot Problem (Book Riot)

Book Riot: Top Reviewers Or Bot Reviewers: The Goodreads Bot Problem. “Bots. Bots are what’s going at Goodreads. Since Goodreads is also used by non-account holders, it is a desirable internet space for advertisers. What happens is that a company or individual will pay for hundreds of positive reviews of their product, so that when a potential buyer sees the reviews, all they see are positive reviews and 5-star ratings. In the case of Goodreads, the product is books. These reviews can be written by a bot or a person with multiple fake accounts.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
June 8, 2021

Toronto Star: Google’s negligence on fake reviews is yet another reason to take action against Big Tech

Toronto Star: Google’s negligence on fake reviews is yet another reason to take action against Big Tech. “I’ve documented thousands of fake reviews across multiple review platforms, involving everyone from doctors to lawyers to home contractors to dog walkers. It’s not just deceived consumers who are being hurt, either. Honest businesses must vie against cheaters who lure customers with fake positive reviews. But the real beneficiaries of this fraud are the review sites and the tech companies who continue to rake in advertising dollars with a wink and a nod to the cheaters. None of the review platforms appear too serious about cleaning up fraud on their sites, and Google is at the top of that list.”

Research & Opinion 0
May 24, 2021

CBC: Black market in Google reviews means you can’t believe everything you read

CBC: Black market in Google reviews means you can’t believe everything you read. “When Roman Abramovich, a Russian billionaire and owner of the English Premier League’s Chelsea Football Club, appeared to have posted a Google review complaining that a Manitoba moving company lost three of his watches, Chris Pereira knew something was wrong. The oligarch had never been a customer at Riverbend Moving and Storage, a small business that offers residential and commercial moving services in Winnipeg. The review was fake, and fit a pattern that Pereira, the company’s vice president of sales, had been observing for months — a slew of made-up complaints targeting the company’s online reputation.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
April 30, 2021

PR Newswire: The New Zagat: Supporting Local Restaurants Since 1979, the World’s Most Iconic Name in Restaurant Discovery Officially Relaunches (PRESS RELEASE)

PR Newswire: The New Zagat: Supporting Local Restaurants Since 1979, the World’s Most Iconic Name in Restaurant Discovery Officially Relaunches (PRESS RELEASE). “Zagat, the most trusted name in restaurant discovery, has officially relaunched. The all-new digital-only platform is designed to improve upon the current state of user-generated content by emphasizing trust, curation, and utility — timed perfectly to meet the moment after a historic year for the restaurant industry. As of today, Zagat’s new digital service is available exclusively for Miami, FL restaurants and diners. As the new product is in its first stages of launch the company plans to roll out additional features as Zagat expands to more cities across the country in the months to follow.”

New Resources 0
January 24, 2021

Liam O’Dell: Twitter invited a deaf person to test out Spaces – here’s what they think…

Liam O’Dell: Twitter invited a deaf person to test out Spaces – here’s what they think…. “Credit where credit’s (over)due, Twitter seem to have finally learned their lesson after the mishap over voice tweets in the summer of 2020. Deaf people are finally involved in the process of developing new audio features, and it’s been done as early as possible, too. ‘The mic is yours,’ read a message when I opened up my Twitter mobile app on Wednesday evening. ‘You can now host and join live conversations in Spaces. Go on. Try it.’ A couple of minutes later, I did just that.”

Research & Opinion 0
October 8, 2020

Exclusive: Jazzwise Launches Dedicated Reviews Database (Jazzwise)

Jazzwise: Exclusive: Jazzwise Launches Dedicated Reviews Database. “…to help you track down the best new music or discover hidden gems you’ve never heard before, we have launched a dedicated, fully searchable database of our reviews. With over 9,500 for you to explore, this new resource is a wonderful new tool subscribers can access to help them explore and discover all the music we have reviewed since 2010.” It’s not free, but a monthly sub is £6.25 (a little over $8 USD.) An annual sub is £60 (a little less than $78 USD.)

New Resources 0
March 12, 2020

Phys .org: Online shoppers swayed by customer reviews of physical products—not experiences

Phys .org: Online shoppers swayed by customer reviews of physical products—not experiences. “We live in a world of online reviews. Before spending on everything from restaurant meals to a new pair of jeans or even a European vacation, many of us often check Amazon, Yelp or TripAdvisor first. But not all customer reviews are created equal. In fact, we put more trust in reviews about material items than we do about experiences.”

Research & Opinion 0
January 27, 2020

Wired: Behind the Scenes at Rotten Tomatoes

Wired: Behind the Scenes at Rotten Tomatoes. “Strange as it is, a website that evaluates films via cartoon tomatoes might be the closest thing our fractured, post-gatekeeper culture has to an arbiter of good taste. The site’s Tomatometer has become, as one early employee put it, a Good Housekeeping Seal for visual entertainment. Red means good, green means bad. The Tomato­meter is run by a team of ‘curators’ who read just about every known review from a gigantic pool of approved critics, then decide if each is positive or negative. Once a movie has five reviews, it is Tomatometer-eligible.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
November 28, 2019

New York Times: When Is a Star Not Always a Star? When It’s an Online Review

New York Times: When Is a Star Not Always a Star? When It’s an Online Review. “An increase of just one star in a rating on Amazon correlates with a 26 percent increase in sales, according to a recent analysis by the e-commerce consulting firm Pattern. But while online reviews have become powerful sales tools, the ecosystem is relatively crude. Reviews can be easy to manipulate, and the operators of sites with the most reviews are not always motivated to crack down on fake ones planted to promote products. That leaves many consumers wondering what to believe.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0

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